to the sky(2017) a journey through the universe, for planetarium (with visuals), solo violin, triple string trio, surround-sound synthesizers and electronicsco-written with Thomas Green and Joshua Rivory

I'm very very VERY excited to be working on my next full-length string quartet, a three-way co-commission of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Mivos Quartet (New York) and Modulus Quartet (London). The Goldner String Quartet (Sydney) will give the world premiere at AFCM in 2019, followed by the American and European premieres later in 2019/2020. A huge thank you to the APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund for their support in commissioning this work.

Katie Noonan and the Australian String Quartet

I've been commissioned to write a new piece for Katie Noonan's upcoming album with the Australian String Quartet, presenting settings by Australian composers of the words of celebrated indigenous poet Oodergoo Noonucal.

/for saxophone, two voices, and ensemble/

singular movement

/for chamber orchestra/

Singular Movement is an exploration of direction and development. Each section of the orchestra is set on its own trajectory – a singular direction and path for the development of its material. For some, it is the slow evolution from sustained drones to sharply agitated rhythm; for others, from back- to foreground; others texture and ephemera to structure. It is a slow, drawn out evolution; there are few points in the work where dramatic change occurs suddenly, however, over it length is traverses vastly contrasting textures and musical ideas.

small circles

/for solo clarinet and orchestra/

Small Circles is a single-movement concerto of sorts for clarinet and orchestra. In this, we see the relationship between the soloist and orchestra constantly changing. The usual relationship, of a soloist set against or accompanied by the force of the orchestra, is seen once the work is underway. However, to open we see the soloist as an acrobatic energy cutting across and circling around a more stable orchestral texture building towards an unknown goal. Later, the orchestra moves to a reactionary role as it is displaced by the soloist’s movement, and to end, the soloist provides a layer of delicate filigree as the orchestra takes the foreground, by which it is eventually subsumed.

Texture No. 1

/for orchestra/

Texture No. 1 is the first in an ongoing series of works for orchestra, each an exploration of a single texture.Dense, vague, murky, voluminous; Layer upon layer of pattern, each obscuring the other; Unfolding, evolving, being shaped throughout.

Chamber Symphony No. 1

Chamber Symphony No. 1 represents a foray into textural orchestration, exploring the vast pallet of timbral colours this ensemble of soloists is capable of: subtle, vague, strangely warm sounds, heavy and dense, pulsing and repetitive, others thin and sparse, droning and flat, while some ecstatic and filled with great movement, forming from the hazed wash of sounds.

Largo for String Orchestra

Chamber

small, round, strangely furry, with spots, stripes and other patterns

/trio for clarinet, violin and piano/

You’re trying to describe something to someone – an object, a concept, an idea, a memory – but however you try to go about describing it, you don’t quite manage to get to the core of the thing – you skim around the topic, relay certain details, related ideas, fragmented glimpses – but never managing to give it’s essence with clarity, always hazed and obscured . . .

small, round, strangely furry, with spots, stripes and other patterns is like this kind of experience. Throughout the work, at its core are just a handful of musical ideas – short melodies, themes, rhythmic patterns – only two or three; however, at no point are these heard clearly. The actual musical substance of the piece is abstractions from these core ideas, eluding to the themes, echoing and augmenting the rhythms, constantly trying to focus in on different facets of the core material, which then spin out to develop new material related to it. Slowly parts drift on musical tangents, the texture becomes more complex, parts conflict and the core of the material becomes obscured/obstructed – while the core musical ideas are always present in some way, they are always shifting in and out of focus.

gossamer

/trio for violin, violoncello and piano/

gossamer – a thin, sheer, gauze-like fabric – a fine spider silk, used by spiderlings for knitting and ballooning – woven into intricate patterns, lace and veils – appearing in the morning delicately suspended across the grass, catching the morning dew – it is also the name of a giant red hairy Looney Tunes monster, but that’s beside the point . . .

gossamer is a work for piano trio that takes its initial inspiration from these ideas (the fabric and spider silk, not the Looney Tunes monster), spinning out a delicate texture of intricate patterns and thin sounds.

breaking, tearing

/sextet for mixed ensemble/

breaking, tearing is a work for small mixed ensemble that looks at taking something very simple, and using it to create something with increasing complexity. Here, it is a simple pattern: 4, 6, 3, 5, 2, 4. This pattern permeates every detail of the music, from the rhythms, to the large-scale structures, to the surface details – it spins itself out in fractal-esk tendrils, reaching every little thing, smaller and smaller. The pattern layers itself, obscuring itself in its detail. As layer upon layer build, they conflict, eventually breaking and tearing at the surface, leaving behind just a shimmering fragmented resonance of the music that came before.

In its premiere, Kensington Cycle was performed by a group of HiP (Historically Informed Performance) specialists playing on period instruments: alto recorder, baroque viola, baroque triple-harp and a chamber organ!

for Consort 21

duration: 5'00"2018

kensington cycle

/collage for variable ensemble and electronics/

In a really strange way, this work kinda feels like it sums up my first few months living in London.

It kinda just takes a few things I've been working with – some ideas I've been toying with, some things I've been trying to learn and/or improve, my attempts to work out how the hell to program in Max/MSP – and mashes them all together in some sort of strange yet oddly pleasing musical collage.

The collage brings together three main elements, which could be performed by any arrangement of instruments:

atmospherebright, energetic, floral, spinning around itself then torn apart by the live electronics creating blurred haze

cycle pulsing echos, these two lines constantly intertwine and toy with each other in a back-and-forth dialogue

two-tap

/for three guitars/

two-tap tackles the world of electro-acoustic music, but, well, in a completely acoustic manner. . . It explores the effects and production techniques used in the studio or by amplified/electric instruments, such as chorus, delays/echoes/reverb and panning effects, reinterpreted as acoustic analogies across the trio. The work was commissioned by the Brisbane-based concert series Paint it Red, for the local Rosa Guitar Trio, the classical guitar trio of Benjamin Ellerby, Joseph Fallon, and Elizabeth Myers, to premiere in the final concert of 2016, Paint it Red • PACE.

parallel

/duet for flute and viola/

music for large spaces

/for two pianos/

Music for Large Spaces is an exploration into the way in which performers interact with vast acoustics, distance, and reverb. Two pianos are to be positioned facing each other, lids removed, with as much distance between them as the venue will allow. Originally written for performance in Meditations, in the premiere the pianos were positioned at either end of St John’s Cathedral Brisbane, with over fifty metres between them. The effect of this work is textural and plays upon the listener’s sense of space and time.

movement to,

/for string quartet/

When I was writing my String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, I finished three movements, the first, third and fourth, got bored, and then stopped. I told myself that I would come back to it . . . and at the beginning of 2015 I did . . . but it was [censored] and I trashed it. It had been performed a number of times at that point with just the three movements, and though it worked well as it was, I still felt that it needed something to break up the rather heavy first and third movements.So . . . I wrote this . . .Movement to, is a stand-alone work for string quartet, suitable for performance in alongside any program of works, which can be performed in place of the missing second movement. For this purpose, it was written with the abandoned movement’s length and key in mind, making use of some of the drafted melodies and themes, however without making an attempt to recreate my earlier compositional style.

traces

/sonata for violoncello and piano no. 1/

When asked to write new works by each the cellist David Freisberg and pianist Samuel Mitchell, I sought to combine the two. The result is equally a sonata for piano and violoncello as it is a sonata for violoncello and piano.

Opening out of hammering chords and grooving rhythms, the first movement falls into motoric patterns, building in momentum before suddenly dissipating into an impressionistic wash.

The second movement opens with sparse cello textures, reminiscent of previous ideas. As this suspends above, brooding piano builds below. The parts collide, developing towards the heart of the work – lush, lyrical, elegiac.

A coda of sorts brings the drive of the first movement together with the soul of the second, before breaking apart and descending into traces of the music it was.

vagaries

/duet for flute and clarinet/

(n.) an unpredictable instance, a wandering journey; a whimsical, wild, or unusual idea, desire, or action

Vagaries is built from a series of free-flowing solo passages for flute or clarinet, each its own whimsical idea, some making reference to others while some run off on a tangent. Finally, these two streams collide, drawing from the preceding solos to create a slowing building duet.

A game of cat and mouse unfolds, as one performer moves, followed at a distance by the other. Should the space and context allow, the performers might lead the audience on a chase through the venue, culminating where the duet begins.

String Quartet No. 2in E minor

WINNER of theAustralian New Works Award 2015

I keep being misquoted as having said that this piece is about''the contours of the Australian landscape''.I didn't.It's not.Not really.. . .but you can keep on thinking that if it helps you,people seem to like that sort of thing.

Out of the warm reverberating of lush chords, a strange nostalgia arises. Memories of past sound encroach on moments. A strange euphoria arises, an ecstatic movement out of the warm reverberating of lush chords.It floats off into the distance.

String Quartet No. 1in D minor

/the first thing I actually ever finished!/

As you can imagine, being my earliest work (or at least the earliest I still allow to see the light of day), my compositional style has changed considerably since this quartet. But I still love it. Similarly, the way I've thought about the work has changed a number of times – finished as three movement work, but feeling it needed a fourth, intending, attempting, and failing to write it, and eventually coming up with a new solution.

duration: 19'00"2014

October 2014:

In my first String Quartet, I was coming from a couple of different angles. The first was to write something short and do it quickly. That didn't really happen. The second was to take some old things and make them new (old ideas of mine, old techniques) and some new things and make the old. Well, fairly new; at least ideas and techniques that are often new, intimidating or unfamiliar and using them to build more familiar structures. For example, taking a serial technique, such as a tone-row, and using it to build quasi-functional progressions, or alternatively, using formal shapes and structure which become buried amidst the mess.

I think it works, don't you?

At times, I think it would work better with another movement. Maybe between the first and second.

Yes, I think I'll do that.

Maybe later.

( I think/hope I've grown a lot since back then... )

February 2015:

I thought I'd attempt writing the second movement in time for the upcoming performance at Paint it Red 9.

I didn't get very far.

My style has changed so much since then, and pretending to write the way I used to . . .

It sounded . . . well . . .

Next time.

February 2016:

I have a solution: a new work, using some of the original ideas and themes, but not attempting to recreate my old style. It can be performed as a standalone work, or played in place of the missing movement.

Solo Instrument

Completely acoustic, with the drones provided by live performers and no amplification or live effects on the violin soloist

Pre-recorded drones, but no effects on the violin (amplification optional)

Live effects and amplification on the violin soloist, but using an ensemble of live performers for the drones

Pre-recorded drones and live effects on the solo violin

Everything: live effects on the solo violin, an ensemble of live performers playing the drones, and using the pre-recorded drones

in stars

/rhapsody for violin and drones/

in stars is a work for solo violin accompanied by a bed of constantly shifting drones. As the soloist unfurls its journey through fragments of lush rhapsody and calm contemplation, the dense bed of drones continues to evolve, with one note in the drones’ chord changing every 3 seconds.

The drones themselves can take multiple forms, up to the performers’ choosing. They can be played by an ensemble of live players – a string orchestra, a choir of flutes or other wind instruments, an organ, a choir of voices – dispersed throughout the space, even surrounding the audience on all sides. Or, it can take the form of the provided pre-recorded electronic track. They could also be performed by a combination of both live performers and the pre-recorded track, each playing in their own time.

The violin solo also has multiple forms: it can be performed simply as an acoustic violin solo, or it can be performed with live electronics, taking the live violin sound, amplifying and processing it through a series of effects.

The electronics are provided as a standalone application for Mac OS. The latest version is v1.9 – please contact me if you need an update.

stolen glances

/moments for violoncello and electronics/

stolen glances is a work for violoncello and electronics that reminisces on the briefest of moments: an unaware smile. It’s the way someone smiles when their guard is let down, when totally at ease/content/safe, completely unaware that they’re even smiling. It’s a moment you might catch unexpectedly, someone else’s personal moment you might steal, an intimate moment shared.

Written for cellist Ben Baker, it takes a short sample of him experimenting with delay and loop effect pedals as its starting point (a sample I stole from his Instagram feed), which is torn apart to form the basis of the electronics for this work.

too, the moon

/fantasy for solo viola and electronics/

too, the moon is a work for solo viola and electronics that reworks the musical and emotional material of one of my earlier works, Cold Companion, a short song for soprano and piano. The original work explores contrasts and isolation: a lone voice in the night, the deep blues of a clear nights’ sky, a simple plaintive vocal line, a rich and subtly complex piano part. This new work takes melodic fragments and the sonorous undulating chords of the piano, tears them apart, and brings them back together in a quasi-fantasia, while turning the cold and plaintive outlook of the song into an emotional outpouring.

etude in 2 parts

/for piano/

etude in 2 parts is a brief and fast-paced dive into the world of the piano etude. Each of the two parts explores the different aspects of the challenges held within musical repetition, pattern and process, presented in a frenetic flow of notes. part 1 tackles the challenges of embedded polyrhythms and polymeter, adding in layers of new pitches pulsing at differing ratios into the running stream of notes, then becoming subsumed as a moto-perpetuo around which chords emerge. part 2 in turn looks at exact repetition, consistency of attack and sound, and sudden variations to a pattern, with small repeated cells suddenly shifting, or adding or subtracting pitches, with minute changes occurring seaming randomly and the sense of pulse or beat constantly being re-established by the changes in cell length.

tarantism

/suite for guitar/

(n.) a form of hysteric behaviour; a nervous disorder marked by uncontrollable bodily movement; overcoming melancholy through dance

Commissioned by guitarist Benjamin Ellerby, this work forms part of a study into how non-guitarist composers approach writing for the instrument. As "Composer B" in the study, I was left to my own devices, having to write the work with no contact between myself and the performer or other guitarist in the process, whereas "Composer A" had weekly sessions learning about the capabilities of the instrument from the performer. Premiered as part of Flow.

susurrus

/sonata for solo violin no. 1/

(n.) a low soft sound, as of whispering, muttering or a quiet wind; a whisper or a rustling

Susurrus is an exploration into ephemera, and the vast timbral possibilities of an instrument as versatile as the violin. Opening with a simple set of alternating harmonics, a vast yet sparse texture opens up, buzzing and shimmering before giving way to fragments of lush lyricism and dazzling, energetic acrobatics, only to collapse back into the texture of the opening. Though written for solo violin, the work is enhanced by the optional use of live electronic manipulation, utilising this to enhance these textural effects, as was achieved in its premiere performance as part of Light Play.

Vocal

tidal

Cold Companion

/a song by itself/

for voice and piano

Commissioned by soprano Jessica Taylor as a short competition piece, Cold Companion is a deceptively simple song for voice and piano. Unfolding from an undulating piano motif, it explores a sense of isolation – a lone figure, surrounded by the hauntingly beautiful depths of the night sky, the moon, but unable to feel its wonder – waves of rich piano, washing over repeatedly, with voice simply. plaintively, floating through.

From the one who knows you best

/for SATB/

Dominus Illuminatio Mea

/psalm 27/

for SSATBB and string quartet

Dominus Illuminatio Mea was commissioned by Brisbane based vocal sextet, Respiri to be performed alongside Renaissance settings of the same text at its premiere. Austerity, richness, rhetoric, and emotion contrast and combine in a work which fuses post-minimal string textures with flowing vocal counterpoint.

/a motet for Christmas/

for SSAATTBB

the Sicilia

/for violin, flute and baritone/

A setting of text from the diary of Sister Lydia King, one of the nurses serving on the SS Sicilia off the coast of Gallipoli during World War One. Dedicated to all nurses who have served during times of conflict.

Mixed-Media & Concept-Concert

to the sky

/a journey through the universe/

mesmerising, intoxicating, breathtaking, exhilarating :: to the sky dissolves the world around you and ascends through the far reaches of the cosmos

A collaborative creation of Argo and the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium, to the sky is a spectacular concert-length journey through our universe and beyond.

Created to be set under the Planetarium's Cosmic Sky Dome, to the sky features the three string trios spread across the space to completely surround the room, and surround sound electronics and synths, with visuals filling the entire space created custom for this event by the Planetarium's curators – heady mix of cosmic visuals, lush contemporary classical strings, and rich analogue and searing digital synths.

Illuminae

/surround sound space opera/

Dive into the world of Illuminae, created in collaboration with Argo, Brisbane Writers' Festival, Queensland Music Festival and the University of Queensland School of Music, and brought to life with music by Ben Heim + Connor D'Netto.

Taking text from the best-selling sci-fi book of the same name, by Melbourne authors Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, audiences are placed in the centre of the novel’s action as another universe explodes around them in surround sound. Lovers converse, a damaged artificial intelligence goes rogue, and star cruisers battle as live strings and electronics underscore this cinematic experience.